


Making Arrangements

by PeniG



Series: Akashic Records [9]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 1020 is the year The Arrangement started, Anglo-Saxon, Female Problems, Historical, Other, per the book
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-14
Updated: 2019-09-14
Packaged: 2020-10-18 06:41:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20634779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PeniG/pseuds/PeniG
Summary: For the last time, Aziraphale refuses to skip an assignment on the grounds that he and Crowley would cancel each other out. Crowley gets to coach him on presenting as female.(The author wimps out but it couldn't be helped.)





	Making Arrangements

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: The sole surviving manuscript of Beowulf is in two hands, indicating that it was started by one individual, a meticulous person who was updating archaisms to make it more accessible, and completed by another, less meticulous person who copied the original, older manuscript straight.
> 
> King Canute set aside his first wife Aelfgifu in order to marry Emma, widow of Aethelred the Unready. Emma, who married Aethelred when she was twelve, appears to have had a solid professional attitude to Queenship, reigning capably in England when Canute traveled to deal with Scandinavian matters. Aelfgifu and her children by Canute did not retreat into a convent as so many discarded wives have done, but seems to have caused Emma no problems. They’re here strictly as background props behaving as my story dictates. This triangle is prime historical novel material, though. Just saying.
> 
> Since Aziraphale is not comfortable switching up his gender presentation I retain his habitual pronouns when he takes on a female aspect. Crowley switches pronouns because she switches aspects so easily. I figure for these two it’ll work well enough. However, I’m so cis it’s hard for me to believe gender is a real thing, so I could be wrong and won’t be hurt if you say so.

“All right, all right, we live to serve and all that,” said Crowley. “Now take yourself off! I need my beauty sleep.”

“I know what sleep is,” said the imp. “And we don’t need it.”

“I’m not the judge of what you personally need, but if I’ve got to be a noblewoman in a flock of noblewomen you can bet your ears I’ll need some sleep first! Scram!”

The imp sank through the floor. Crowley had to smooth the loose stones and disturbed rushes back into order himself, and then considered what to do about the smell. Authentic hellish brimstone odor was sticky by design, and he wasn’t about to crack open his shutter with snow coming down outside. But the steady approach of a certain aura made an improvement to the atmosphere urgent. He miracled fragrant wood and incense into his brazier, hoping it would be enough. He also needed to get to the kitchen, but first things first. _What to wear?_

He went through four or five costume changes, adjusted his hair in his beaten-silver mirror, tested his breath, decided his hair was impossible and tried a completely different style, which required a cap, which meant the outfit no longer worked. His angel was actually in town, now, if he had any sense of distance at all (and for this aura, he did), and he still had to gather refreshments and - oh, bugger, what if Aziraphale didn’t come to see Crowley first? He wouldn’t be walking all the way from Malmsbury on a whim, and not all his assignments required normal human contact. If Aziraphale conducted his business first, and it was at all involved, they could easily miss each other!

So Crowley wrapped himself up in his sable cloak with the close hood (which meant he’d have to do the whole hair business again) on top, and put on actual boots for once, and sallied out into the snow to meet his foe, who was taking advantage of the emptiness and darkness of the streets to waddle along, for all the world like a leucistic puffin, on top of the crust without breaking through into the ice and slush and miscellaneous street filth below. His white cloak wrapped him up tight and his face peeped, apple-cheeked, out of the circle of his hood. Crowley stopped at the sight, seizing a moment to get his face and posture suitably nonchalant; but Aziraphale saw him before he was ready. As he always did, because Crowley was never ready. The light was not sufficient to build blueness in the eyes, but the darkness was not sufficient to conceal the Smile as his desire to see Crowley was fulfilled. The waddle - already much faster than it had any business to be; the angel knew how to cover ground - sped up, and now they were face to face, near enough to hear each other without disturbing the honest tradesmen asleep in the dark and silent houses lining the street: “Crowley! I didn’t expect to see you out in the snow like this.”

“Hullo, Aziraphale. What brings you to town?”

Aziraphale made a face. “Only passing through, I’m afraid. I’ve got an assignment I’m supposed to pick up here. But I should have a few hours grace.”

“Come along, then.”

Nearly a thousand years since Rome, and Crowley was still not accustomed to how easily, when he cared to, when they had no overt immediate conflict to deal with, Aziraphale could accept his company. The boundaries had to be renegotiated for every meeting, sure; they would never again, probably, enjoy the tacit businesslike intimacy of the earliest days; but Crowley was used to being off-balance and in constant renegotiation mode with the universe. Walking side-by-side, Aziraphale admiring Crowley’s cloak and Crowley teasing Aziraphale about the puffin-waddle, the frozen clouds of their unnecessary but habitual breath mingling in the air between them, that was a present pleasure too pure to muddy with concerns about how long it would last or what moral or administrative deadline would disrupt it.

Crowley let them in through the kitchen, standing back and holding the door in order to enjoy the sight of Aziraphale embracing the glorious steady warmth from the baking ovens. They helped themselves to a couple of the rising rolls, miracling them to the end of the baking process, and mulled themselves a little cider, without disturbing the apprentices or the turnspit dog, curled up together on the hearth; in fact Crowley saw them all relax into a better sleep, and smile (even the dog), as the angel bent over them to put back the poker he’d heated the cider with. Crowley could almost feel the wave of good dreams spreading through the sleepers in the great hall as they passed through it, to the little unregarded door that was his.

“My goodness! How do you rate your own chamber?”

Crowley shrugged. “I need it, so I have it. Nobody notices. You know how it is.”

“Even in a royal household?” Hood first, all damp with snow, and then the angel unpinned his winged brooch and let Crowley unroll him from the cloak.

Crowley hung both garments on the handy hook by the door. “Canute’s barely had time to establish himself, and with all the flitting around he does, the household changes constantly.” Aziraphale was looking at the room, not at him, so he got his own hood off and fixed his hair while he had the chance. “Everybody knows their own cliques and trusts the general sense of familiarity for everybody else. I don’t have to _belong_ anywhere, as long as I can create a sense of belonging _some_where at any given moment.” Side by side on their hooks, the cloaks hung like black and white wings and added a smell of damp wool to the brimstone, sandalwood, yeast, and cloves in the atmosphere. He sprawled, and the angel sat, on stools with the brazier between them. Crowley took off his lenses and chucked them onto the bed. “S’good for making mischief, and for getting out into the town when I need to, or holing up to sleep the boring times away. Of which there are far too many. I miss proper cities.”

“Don’t we all? Not that I’m dissatisfied with abbey life. It’s been very restful.” Aziraphale ate his roll daintily between sentences. “The constant interruptions for various services can be annoying, but I can easily sneak out of the dortoir to pursue my own projects by night. I’ve accumulated a huge stack of poetry to be copied, and now I may never be able to go back and finish! I was in the middle of an excellent _Beowulf_ when I got my assignment, and though I don’t think they’ll leave it incomplete I’d really rather have seen the project through myself; and what if nobody copies the rest of them?”

“Why wouldn’t they? And if they don’t, s’not the end of the world. I wouldn’t have figured _Beowulf_ for your kind of story, though. I mean - monster slaying? All that wrestling and impossible underwater feats and tearing arms off? You don’t like it when you have to do that stuff in real life.”

“I’ve _never_ torn an arm off! Ugh! But. Yes. Well. I knew the poets, you see. I taught one of them to write, and his friend - an ex-Viking, a strapping fellow till he got his injury - knew the story by heart and they worked on it, between them, for years, in the moments they could carve out from the demands of their lives, pulling and pushing the words till the Christian and pagan elements were balanced the way they wanted them. They were so sweet together, and - so much gets lost, in this world! Peter, the literate one, died within a year of finishing it, and then his Gunnar carried on without him for twenty years after, trying to be a proper monk, with no vocation at all, so he could join Peter in Heaven someday. He gave me the manuscript when he went into the infirmary for the last time, because he was afraid – someone else – might destroy it. I would like to preserve the great work of their lives, if I can.”

Crowley didn’t know why that information should leave him at a loss for words, but found himself drinking to cover the fact that he had no idea what to say to it; or rather, to the wistful tone in Aziraphale’s voice, as he spoke of it. Aziraphale finished his roll, and Crowley handed him another.

“Oh, thank you. It’s nice to get something with a little extra, so to speak. The bread at Malmsbury is, well, uninspired!” He held it in both hands, breathing the warmth and the yeast, before taking it apart to eat.

Crowley watched him with a contented heart. “I’m disappointed not to see you in black.”

“Yes, well, I wouldn’t want to intrude on your sartorial territory.” Aziraphale’s outfit was suitable to a conservative Saxon rather older than he appeared to be: pristine white wool with blue trim and a broad braided leather belt, an intertwined wing buckle - all this had to be black Benedictine robes at base, so he would have done it himself, probably while traveling - but before Crowley could frame a compliment on his workmanship, the angel’s voice trundled on. “Please tell me the whole court isn’t going around in such short tunics in this weather!”

“It’s not _that_ short,” said Crowley, stretching his legs out even longer. “Besides, what does it matter, when the trousers are this shapeless? If I tailor ‘em too much everybody wants to know who made ‘em so they can get some, too.”

“You could always invent a sister who’s a seamstress, sinful trousers a specialty.”

“Oh, now there’s a thought. There’s an excellent thought. I’ll get right on that.”

“I was joking! And you are, too. You had better be joking. I don’t believe you know how to make trousers, anyway, not well enough to make them fit tightly and be possible to get into without a miracle.” Crowley smirked at him. Aziraphale finished his roll without dropping a crumb, drank some cider, and said: “I’m glad to find you here instead of off to Denmark with the king.”

“What’s to do in Denmark but stir the pot to war again? I’m sick to death of that.” They both were, not only because war was inherently unpleasant, but because any time Michael decided things had escalated to the point that an area of earth had become the business of the Host rather than Earthly Affairs, Gabriel would scoop Aziraphale up and put him down somewhere “peaceful,” which as likely as not meant a plague, a famine, or a natural disaster. “I’d rather stay here and brumate.”

“Did I wake you up? Or had you already been woken?”

“Smelled the brimstone, eh? Yeah, got an assignment. Leaving on it in the morning. Eight hours later you’d have missed me.”

“Are you, by any chance, accompanying the Queen on her Candlemas journey?”

And there they were. “Oh, angel! Are you stuck overseeing Emma meeting with Aelfgifu at a nunnery, too?”

“I’m afraid so. Have you any idea what’s going on? It’s been my understanding that Emma’s a professional Queen down to her toes. She wouldn’t seek out an awkward situation, would she? Does she actually know Aelfgifu’s going to be at that convent?”

“Don’t ask me! I’ve been asleep! It doesn’t sound like her. More likely it’s an ambush, though what Aelfgifu thinks she’ll get out of it is more than I can think. If it’s deliberate it has to be personal.”

“At this level, though, personal can’t be anything _but_ political. I don’t know anything about Aelfgifu, except that Canute put her aside but also kept her close enough to visit. And then there’s the children... I hope you’re wrong and it’s an accident.”

“Don’t see how. Emma’s had her winter travels planned for ages. Anybody who’s interested knows all about it. Whatever, I’m supposed to make sure it’s all bollocksed up.”

“And_ I’m_ supposed to make it go smoothly, somehow!”

_Damn Heaven_, thought Crowley, observing the discontent on his angel’s face, _and damn Hell, too!_ But Heaven was the one handing out impossible jobs, here. If they wanted someone influencing the Queen of the North Sea Empire, they should have had someone in place for years. Tipping a meeting between a discarded first consort and a reigning Queen into chaos should be child’s play; keeping everything civil required a steady, trusted presence who knew all the players and all the strings that pulled them. Aziraphale _couldn’t_ win this one. Crowley relaxed into a broad smile. “All right, then! Only one thing to do.”

“What’s that?”

“Stay home!”

“I beg your pardon!” Aziraphale drew himself up, affronted; though not as affronted as he had been the first time Crowley’d raised the notion. He_ wanted_ to agree.

“Hear me out! We both know this is a rubbish assignment. Traveling in winter, worming ourselves into the confidences of _two_ households, controlling the behavior of two different women whose agendas we don’t know - a lot of trouble and pain and the most likely result is that we’ll cancel each other out and both sides will be left exactly where they would have been if we’d never gotten involved. So why go to all that work? Why?”

“Because we’ve got assignments! You can’t just - not do assignments!”

“Yes we can! This place’ll be practically empty; skeleton staff and the kids, that’s it. I can go back to sleep, you can rummage through Canute’s library in peace.”

“Does Canute even have a library? No, wait, it doesn’t matter. I won’t be rummaging in anything. I have to join Queen Emma’s retinue.”

“No you don’t! You can stay and, and teach me to play chess or something. I don’t have to brumate if you’re here to do things with. There’ll be a miracle play for Candlemas at an inn near here, we could go to that, and I know a merchant who’s got an old-school blind singer wintering with him. Sets a good table.”

“The assignment -“

“What _about_ the assignment? If things go tits up you report that I thwarted you, if things go well I report that you thwarted me, Emma and Aelfgifu get to practice their free will on each other - there _is_ no downside!”

“Our head offices’ll know we didn’t make the trip!”

“Only if they check and they won’t! When was the last time someone came to look over your shoulder?”

“Just because they haven’t doesn’t mean they won’t! Anyway, anyway, that’s not the point. The point is I have a duty of obedience. Whether anyone’s checking up on me or not!”

“I was about to suggest you could go back to your monastery and finish copying out _Beowulf_, but you’ve obviously been there too long already, talking about ‘_duty of obedience._’”

“You can sneer at duty all you want. If you think you can get away with ignoring Hell’s instructions, by all means, do so with my good will. _I’m_ the one bound to virtue, and_ I’m_ going.”

Crowley groaned. “No, no, no, if you go I have to go, don’t you see that?”

“No. I don’t. You know perfectly well, if those two women are out for each other’s throats in earnest, I won’t be able to do a thing about it. My best chance of success is if the whole setup is an accident and I can calm any troubled waters that arise. If you come along to stir things up I haven’t a prayer.”

“Good, so you admit it’s pointless!”

“I have to do it whether it’s pointless or not.”

“And I can’t afford to let you go off and steal a march on me. You know I can’t. If you beat me fair and square or the humans settle their own affairs, that’s one thing. Lying down and rolling over for you, that’s not happening.”

The argument hung between them, mingling with the smoke in the brazier, as their eyes met and held, blue on yellow, and there they were, the terms of engagement for Candlemas, 1020. Aziraphale held a chapped, ink-stained hand over the sweet-smelling low flame and turned it, warming all sides. “All right, then,” he said. “We’ll go together. It’s - been a long, long time since I put on a female aspect for more than a few hours. I’ll have to trust your sense of fair play not to let me make any too egregious mistakes in presentation.”

Crowley blinked, slowly, warm delight displacing his frustration as he saw what Aziraphale wanted from him. “Yes. Yes, of course.” The corner of his mouth twitched uncontrollably. “You can trust me for that. Unless the mistake is wildly hilarious. Then all bets are off.”

Aziraphale rolled his eyes. “Reasonable limits apply, of course. Far be it from me to spoil the fun.”

“Oh, you won’t!” Crowley leaped to his feet. “All this time, I’ve _never_ seen your female aspect. Come on, show me.”

“All right, all right, give me a minute.” Aziraphale put down his cup and braced his hands on his knees. “But you’ll be disappointed. I’ll only be rearranged a little.”

Crowley nodded and gestured for him to get on with it. The angel closed his eyes, hummed a bit, and changed. His Adam’s apple, never prominent, retreated, and his belly redistributed itself to create a rather stubby hourglass figure. The blue eyes reopened. “You see? Still me.”

Crowley leaned over and blew the ink stains off Aziraphale’s hand. “There you go. Won’t see many non-nuns with inky fingers. Now, let’s see your walk.”

“Let me adjust the clothes, first.” Aziraphale stood, shaking out his tunic, which morphed into an overdress of identical materials. The trousers melded into a brown undergown. The boots became shoes, without changing the design much, modern Saxon footgear being all much of a muchness. The belt slid down a few inches along his narrower (but still round) belly to ride on his broadened hips. “All right - now, remember, it’s a _very_ long time since I did this!”

Crowley watched critically as he took a turn around the room. After several steps he managed to adjust his stride to the skirt and start kicking it out ahead of him properly, but still, everything was all wrong. “You’re swinging too straight from the hips, angel, pivot a bit...no, side to side...no, like this, watch.” Crowley changed with his usual lack of effort, not mucking with the clothes, and demonstrated.

“I will _never_ be able to do _that_,” Aziraphale protested.

“Not with that attitude you won’t. Give it a shot.”

Aziraphale gave it several shots, but abandoned the effort in a huff when Crowley collapsed on the bed laughing. “Well, excuse me for not having a free-floating pelvis like some people! The rump _does_ wiggle, I can feel it, so I don’t know what you want from me.”

“Pelvis!” Crowley bounced to her feet again. “I bet that’s it! Did you adjust the pelvis enough to fit a baby through it?”

“I think - hmm. Maybe I didn’t. I was mostly redistributing fat.”

“Don’t forget the muscles, either. You’re used to carrying most of your strength in your upper body, and most women don’t. You may have to make the effort of creating all the biological female bits to get everything arranged properly.”

“I’ve never done that before, but I’ll see what I can do.” Aziraphale put his hands on his hips and frowned in concentration. The clothes roiled and shifted.

Crowley circled him, hands behind her back. “Now you look silly - better put some of that hip fat back into the belly. Yes, much better. If you’ll smooth out the curves - ooh, no, too much -“

“Stop _hovering_ and help, if you’re going to be so picky,” snapped Aziraphale.

“I’d have to touch you for that.”

“Do it, then! At this rate I’ll still be figuring out how to walk when the journey starts, and we haven’t even decided how to insert ourselves into the retinue yet.”

Crowley stamped down hard on the glee that surged through her at being invited right across the Do Not Cross line, and skimmed the problem areas with her palms. She wasn’t used to sculpting other people’s bodies, and Aziraphale’s corporation was made of denser, softer, matter than her own. Stubborn stuff, Aziraphale, right through; as if his corporation had absorbed his essential qualities over the millenia. The womb and the pelvis weren’t quite - and the musculature - “Here we go, if we shift this bit - there!” Aziraphale staggered as his center of gravity changed, and caught Crowley’s hands to steady himself. “Try it now, angel.”

“I’m not sure I like this,” said Aziraphale; but he walked around the room, the skirt swishing behind him, back straight and breasts out, all soft curves and bustling grace.

Crowley clapped her hands. “You’re perfect! Now, for the hair -“

“It’ll be hidden under the wimple.”

“Not at night! We’ll be sharing rooms with who knows how many women every night. You have to have something believable under the wimple.”

“It’s already longer than I like it. I’m not a young lady on a husband hunt. Nobody’ll care about my hair.”

“Oh, but I know just what to do, I _promise_, it won’t be uncomfortable a bit - c’mon, angel, let me do your hair!”

Aziraphale rolled his eyes and sat back down on the stool. “Very well, but if this is a demonic trick to make me ridiculous -“

“Wouldn’t dream of it! You can do ridiculous all by yourself much better than anything I could inflict on you.” Crowley danced around behind him and started running his fingers - in an unimpeachably businesslike way - through the bright clean fleece of her angel’s hair. A bit winter-dry, and she could detect the circle where his monastic tonsure had been, but oh! Such a good texture at base, thick and soft and curly! She drew it out gently, an inch at a time, past his collar, past his shoulders, till the weight of the hair started straightening out the curls, and then another inch or two for fun and because she could feel him enjoying the process. Poor lamb, he was always a little skin hungry since the Romans and their baths faded away. She combed through the cascade of pale hair with her walrus-ivory comb and separated it for braiding.

“As far as inserting ourselves into the Queen’s retinue, that won’t be a problem,” she said as she worked. “I’m female around here as often as I’m male. People are a bit vague on my function, but it won’t surprise anyone that I made the cut. Everybody knows Lady Crowlyn, more or less! So I can cover for you. Shall you be my sister? My cousin? My aunt?”

“Oh, goodness, I’d never pass as a noblewoman,” said Aziraphale. “I was thinking more along the lines of a tire-woman.”

“Are you sure? You realize I’ll make you play the part? You’ll have to braid my hair, and lace up my dress, and shoe my foot - be careful what you’re offering here!”

“I think I can manage,” said Aziraphale. “It’s not as if you actually_ need_ me for any of those offices. I can just go through the motions.”

_I love this mission_, thought Crowley. _This is going to be the best mission ever!_

* * *

  
** _Editor’s note: At this point, sources indicate that we are missing a 30K-word farce, full of escalating slapstick rivalry; a large cast of noblewomen, nuns, and servants, at least two of whom are queer women whom our protagonists unwittingly inspire; a lot of hairplay and bustling about in a fetching but strictly businesslike way on Aziraphale’s part; Crowley nearly walking into a chapel out of sheer contrariness; some hurt feelings; and the discovery that, when humans are around, Aziraphale sings slightly off-key on purpose._ **

** _Since the only way to actually bring you this comic masterpiece would involve two years of research, including a trip to England, at least a month of meticulous plot-crafting, and a disciplined work schedule, you’ll have to be satisfied with this precis, and settle for resuming our story, already in progress, three weeks later, after our heroes have both been brought up short by the surprising development of Aziraphale having a spectacularly bad period. I'm sorry, especially since this may be the only time Aziraphale presents female for me, but I know my limitations._ **

* * *

  
_Three weeks later_

Crowley tiptoed into the infirmary, not for the first time blessing the stability of her feet since Aziraphale’d put them back together after that business with St. Patrick. If she didn’t support the trencher of bread with both hands, it would break, and she wasn’t sure her old feet could have handled pushing the door open and closing it after her without banging it embarrassingly loudly in the warm stillness of the room, where every single case of cough, sore throat, and catarrh, as well as the trainee infirmarer stuck sitting with the patients during the Candlemas Feast, were sound asleep. Because of course they were; it was the only way for them to get better, and Aziraphale would help them on reflex. Only Aziraphale, a knot of hot white pain curled up on a cot too narrow for him, was awake.

Crowley crossed the room and set the trencher on a stool by his head, where the aromas of the foods could reach out to him, but Aziraphale looked past that, eyes stark in a paper-white face, braids disintegrating into curls again. “You were right,” he said. “We shouldn’t have come.”

“Well, we’re here now,” said Crowley. “Angel, what’s wrong? You should have been able to fix yourself by now! Look, I brought you some roast goose, and some apple tart, and -“

“We shouldn’t have come,” Aziraphale repeated. “You were right. This has all been a huge waste of time and temper.”

“Oh, rubbish, we were having great fun till your corporation went all wonky. We didn’t, didn’t damage anything when I landed on you, did I?”

Aziraphale tsked. “No, my dear, falling off the roof damaged nothing but what little dignity I had left. I seem to have done something wrong when I made the womb, is all, and I can’t focus enough to diagnose when it hurts so much. I know biology isn’t your strong suit, but if you could take a look -“

“Of course,” said Crowley. “Could you uncurl a bit for me? There we go.” Aziraphale unwrapped himself and raised the sheet, and Crowley placed her hand flat against the lower part of his abdomen. The rags bound between his legs were already soaking through, the smell trapped under the bedding like a solid presence. Crowley’s heart sank. “Oh. Oh, I see. I’m so sorry, angel! This is _my_ fault! I didn't mean to, but I cursed you.”

“You did not,” said Aziraphale; not a protest, but a statement of fact. “I know a curse when I see one, so don’t get _dramatic_ on me.”

“All right, but - our work’s all mixed up together here, from when I was helping you get your shape right, and it looks like the blood triggered a reaction in with my power residue. It might as _well_ be a curse! Oh, what did you want to go and give yourself a cycle for, anyway? I never do!”

“You’re the one who told me to make the organs! What’s the point of doing only half the job? I might as well have a heart that doesn’t beat as - Oh, _ow,_ never mind, never mind, _Crowley_ -“

The agonized plea in Aziraphale’s voice cut right through Crowley’s fear of making things worse, and she pushed to undo the adjustments she’d made while Aziraphale was creating the reproductive organs to begin with. She felt something give. Aziraphale gasped in relief. In moments they’d cleared all the troublesome interior bits away. Aziraphale uncurled. “Thank you! That’s much better. Now I'm only retaining water. Honestly, human women are the toughest creations on Earth, going through _that_ every month!”

“Very few of them bleed till they _faint_ monthly, and the ones who do generally die young! I’m so, so sorry!”

“Shh. It’s not your fault.” Aziraphale’s color was returning, the rags were clean again, and he sat up, regarding the trencher with interest. “My corporation, my responsibility. We could have forestalled this, if I’d paid better attention. I think I could try that goose now. It was kind of you to bring it.”

Crowley huffed, and broke a corner off the trencher. “Kindness doesn’t enter into it. I’m following the rules of engagement.”

“Duly noted.” Aziraphale accepted the bread with one hand and picked up a morsel of goose with the other. “I suppose my charges have been well and truly set at each other’s throats by now?”

Crowley pulled a face, enjoying the way Aziraphale’s eyes crinkled at the edges - whether at her face or at the flavor of the goose, she couldn’t tell. “It’s a lost cause! Those two are set on managing Canute and the country well enough that their children will be able to take peace and stability for granted. No sin I can tempt them with could possibly lead them to that goal, and their primary sins are working _against_ me - Emma’s Pride won’t let her lower herself to competing for Canute, who honestly I think she regards as a job more than a husband, and Aelfgifu’s Greed is busy keeping what she’s _got_ safe. There’s nothing to sink my hooks into. Short of brute-forcing in some Wrath or Lust or whatnot, which is beneath _me_, there’s nothing left to do but create strife in their households, and you know how well that's going.”

Aziraphale licked grease off his fingers, wiped them on the bread, and ate the bread. “So Heaven and Hell should have respected them more. And we should have stayed home.”

Five hundred years of rejecting the notion, and now, suddenly - _You were right, we should have stayed home_. “So. Next time we both get a rubbish assignment where we’d cancel each other out?”

“We will do something else. I could be a good way further into copying _Beowulf_ by now; or I could have dug up a few dozen opportunities to encourage the arts and sciences and feed the poor; and still had time to teach you chess. How is it you don’t know the rules to chess by now?”

Crowley shrugged. “Too much sitting still! But if that’s the price of not taking a road trip in the middle of winter, I will pay it.”

“At least your horse didn’t throw you this time,” said Aziraphale; which made Crowley sneer. They both knew that the only reason her horse hadn’t panicked (as they usually did) at being ridden by a snake was, that the angel had ridden pillion.

Well, two could play that game. “And _you_ learned new skills! You make an excellent tire-woman.”

“I certainly got enough practice, with you loaning me out to all and sundry while you tried to steal a march on me.”

“Your own fault for being so diligent! Half the ladies of the court are green with Envy that Lady Crowyn has such a marvelous mother hen looking out for her, and that’s _your_ doing.”

“Nonsense! Their servants are a delightful lot of young women. Overworked, but helpful to each other when it matters. Nobody needs to envy anybody with them around.”

“Funny, because when they’re at home they’re all a spiteful bunch of backstabbers.”

“You exaggerate. You mustn’t mistake friendly rivalry for enmity.”

“That’s as may be.” Crowley leaned on the side of the bed, watching Aziraphale eat the apple tart with the same plump fingers that had been doing up Crowley’s hair morning and evening for three weeks. She suspected it would be a long, long time before she saw him in a female aspect again, so best treasure up the sight while she could. That alone had almost been worth all the pointless jostling for position and escalating mutual interference they’d gone through; and even some of _that_ had been fun, activating Aziraphale’s stubborn, competitive streak till chasing each other over snowy rooftops almost made sense. Almost.

And she could let him have the win on the assignment, now he was finally conceding a point that had been obvious for centuries: Heaven and Hell had no business bossing them around, and they could afford to make judgment calls about when to put up with it.

“Emma’s still got three towns to visit,” said Crowley, when all the choicer viands were gone and Aziraphale was frugally finishing up the trencher itself. “Do you want to go with her?”

“Why, do you have an idea for what to do instead? I don’t think the Prioress would want us lingering here.”

Since the Prioress had been the primary witness to Aziraphale’s fall from the roof, dragging Crowley with him into a snowdrift, Crowley was inclined to agree.“I want to live in a real city again. Someplace with a proper nightlife. And scholars to lead into vicious in-fighting over trivial differences of opinion. And, and master builders not up to their eyeballs in religious buildings.”

Aziraphale looked wistful. “Proper students of medicine making real progress. Artists. Scholars and poets and musicians neither sworn to forsake the world, nor shoved to its fringes begging for their suppers.”

“And sunshine. I want _sunshine._ Are there places like that anymore? They can’t all have gone the way of Rome.”

“The Muslim countries, perhaps?”

_He was considering it!_ “Cordoba was nice last time I was there, but I hear they’re fighting again.”

“I think Egypt is stable right now. That’s a long way, though.”

“Not so much by ship. Not once we got across France. The Channel’s the big obstacle.”

“I can handle the Channel, that’s not a problem. It’s a long way from where I’ve been assigned, is all.”

“But you weren’t assigned to Malmsbury, were you? You just washed up in the vicinity and decided you needed some time to rest up and make books - didn’t you?”

“More or less. But I can hardly wash up in Egypt from an assignment in southern England.”

“You can if I’ve incurred your Divine Wrath and you’re chasing me. Your head office _loves_ it when they think you’re getting smitey!” Crowley bounced. “C’mon! It’ll be fun! Once we get there, anyway - I don’t fancy the first part of the journey.”

“That won’t take us long. Most of the streams are frozen. We can skate to the coast.”

“Excuse me! Have you _seen_ me skate?”

“Yes. It’s hilarious.”

“Oh, I like that, Mr. Skims-Along-with-a-Poker-Up-His-Bum!”

Aziraphale laughed. “I may look funny, but I get where I’m going! If you can’t handle it I’ll pull you.” He stopped suddenly, as if surprised by the sound of his own voice. “Crowley. Are we - we’re really doing this? Vanishing from the nunnery, going off on our own, and, and submitting our reports - when?”

“Sometime when you can snatch a minute. My lot don’t read reports anyway, and I don’t believe yours do, either. And it’s not like anybody _here_ will miss us.”

“I’m pretty sure they will. We’ve made ourselves conspicuously ridiculous. If we vanish they’ll be searching for us with dogs and telling stories about how the devil or the fairies snatched us away. We should wait till tomorrow, so we can create the impression among the nuns that we left with Emma, and among the ladies that you, I don’t know, got a vocation.”

“Don’t even _joke_ about that! Can you imagine me as a nun?”

“I absolutely can! You’d wreak havoc! It’s a good thing for the convents of Europe that you can’t enter a chapel.”

“I could if I had to.”

“If I argue that point you’ll try to prove it, so yes, of course you could, if you_ had_ to, but I beg you will not!”

“Well, since you _beg_ me...” Crowley slid her lenses down her nose to wink at him

Aziraphale rolled his eyes. “Since a vocation is out of the question, your tire-woman isn’t fit to travel and you don’t want to leave her behind. After the way you carried on when I fainted no one will doubt that. The infirmarer was deeply touched at how attached you were to me. Though she was also annoyed at having to throw you out.”

“I did _not_ carry on when you fainted! The infirmarer’s a liar!”

“I could hear you, my dear! Fainting is a peculiar sensation - you aren’t unconscious, but can’t stand up or see, and everything’s a long way away. I hope you never do it.”

“I hope _you_ never do it again! You scared me, angel.”

“Yes, well, all’s well now. The feast must be almost over. You should get back to the guest house.”

“You’re the servant, here. You can’t tell me what to do.” Crowley climbed onto the stool. “Let me fix your hair. If we leave it like that it’ll be nothing but knots in the morning.”

Aziraphale sighed and turned his back. "I'll be shortening it again anyway."

Crowley pulled her comb out of her own hair, and got to work.

-30-

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [God's Gift](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20994761) by [Katzedecimal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katzedecimal/pseuds/Katzedecimal)


End file.
